Changes to WSOP Circuit Series National Championship

The World Series of Poker Circuit Series hosted its first national Championship last year, where players qualified for the Championship through the WSOPC tournaments throughout the year. Overall the WSOPC National Championship was a success, but the WSOP is looking to make the tournament even more prestigious by allowing players in the Top 100 earners from WSOP events since2010 will be able to enter the National Championship.

Last year only qualifiers made up of winners from WSOPC Main Events and Player of the Series winners (automatic qualifiers) were allowed to compete in the national Championship, along with the top 66 players over the course of the WSOPC season (at-large berths).

This year they will be joined by the Top 100 earners, who unlike the qualifiers will have to pony-up the $10,000 buy-in fee in order to compete in the $1,000,000 tournament -these $10,000 buy-ins will be added to the total prize-pool.

It will be interesting to see how many players register for the tournament, which takes place just before the WSOP tournament series kicks off and awards the first gold bracelet of the year. The names in the Top 100 list are quite impressive, but it will depend on how many of these players want to put up the $10,000 buy-in just before the WSOP begins.

Here is a look at the current list of players who have qualified for the tournament:

Michael Mizrachi, Ben Lamb, Shawn Buchanan, Phil Hellmuth, John Juanda, Chris Moorman, Jonathan Duhamel, John Racener, David Baker, Frank Kassela, Richard Ashby, Steve Billirakis, Jason Somerville, Brian Rast, Daniel Idema, Eugene Katchalov, Bertrand Grospellier, Jeffrey Papola, Tristan Wade, Pius Heinz, Jason Mercier, Matthew Matros, Daniel Kelly, Sam Trickett, Michael Chow, Allen Kessler, Valdemar Kwaysser, Vladimir Shchemelev, Joseph Cheong, Men Nguyen, David Baker, Joe Ebanks, David Chiu, Owais Ahmed, Mikhail Lakhitov, Tomer Berda, Sam Stein, Mitch Schock, Eric Buchman, Miguel Proulx, Martin Staszko, Jake Cody, Christian Harder, David Peters, Daniel Alaei, Matt Jarvis, Tom Dwan, Sean Getzwiller, James Dempsey, Ian Gordon, George Lind, Will Failla, Gavin Smith, Amir Lehavot, Nick Schulman, Joshua Tieman, Alexander Kostritsyn, Mark Radoja, Allen Bari, Matt Glantz, Jarred Solomon, Maxwell Troy, David Bach, Elio Fox, Mark Schmid, Ayaz Mahmood, Nick Binger, Matt Keikoan, David Sands, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Arkadiy Tsinis, Jason Dewitt, Fabrice Soulier, Robert Mizrachi, Matt Marafioti, Steve Landfish, Maxim Lykov, Chris Bjorin, Jon Turner, Sammy Farha, John Dolan, Pascal LeFrancois, Viacheslav Zhukov, Victor Ramdin, Joshua Brikis, Nicolas Fierro, Gabriel Nassif, Scott Montgomery, Kirill Rabtsov, Jesse Rockowitz, Peter Gelencser, David Diaz, Tyler Bonkowski, Eric Cloutier, Michael Michnik, Owen Crowe, Vitaly Lunkin, Steve Sung, Eric Rodawig and Sami Kelopuro.

Last year the WSOP Circuit Series National Championship was won by Sam Barnhart, who pocketed $300,000 for his win. Barnhart was a completely unknown player who qualified by winning the WSOPC Tunica Main Event, and over $140,000. Prior to this Barnhart’s largest cash in a poker tournament was $2,432! Barnhart then went on to finish 17^th in the 2011 WSOP Main Event, earning $378,796, and bringing his 2011 tournament winnings up to $835,379.